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uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

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Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#71

Post by Maximus9000 »

gnuj3 wrote: post #22
iLoveOncall wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to find any competitor which provides its own results and is even 50% as good as Google's results. Features are nice, but for a search engine results are everything.

Kagi is even better than Google in my opinion. I’m still thinking whether I want to pay a subscription for it but it’s tempting since the results are so good. M When I first switched from Google to DDG I found myself using g! all the time as I wasnt happy with the results, especially local such as finding a specific shop in my area etc. I dont recall using g! with Kagi, and when I was bored and compared the Kagi sear…

> When I first switched from Google to DDG I found myself using g! all the time

lol, I did the exact same thing! After a month of that, I just went back to Google :(. Google's results are just so damn good.

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#73

Post by krono »

behnamoh wrote: post #68
krono wrote: post #35

I've posted this before, but you can achieve the same with uBlock Origin static filters alone without having to install any additional extensions. For example: To block results from specific domains on Google or DDG: google.*##.g:has(a[href*="thetopsites.com"]) duckduckgo.*##.results > div:has(a[href*="thetopsites.com"]) And it's even possible to target an element's text content with a `:has-text(/regex/)` selector:…

Is it possible to block/hide "People Also Search For" boxes in Google search results? It's annoying because each time you go back to search results, this little box re-aligns the whole list of results so you can't quickly click on the next search result.

This should do:

    google.*###search > div > div > div:has(span:has-text(/People also ask/))

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#74

Post by behnamoh »

lordgilman wrote: post #13

I'm using uBlacklist plus these two blacklists that block out spam sites that clone pages from Stack Overflow and Github. https://github.com/arosh/ublacklist-stackoverflow-translatio... https://github.com/arosh/ublacklist-github-translation

You can also import these lists in uBlock Origin's filters and use one fewer extension.

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#75

Post by behnamoh »

skilled wrote: post #28
Belphemur wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue all Q&A services devolve into madness when they get mainstream. Before Quora we had yahoo answer and before that surely something else. As soon as they get mainstream the quality of question and answer goes down. Those systems only work with well defined constraints either on the subject of the question or the validation of the expertise of the people answering. All of those platform just open the valve wit…

This is largely platform’s fault though. Quora had every opportunity to stop site spammers from posting non-informative answers just to farm clicks for the blog posts they link to for the “full” answer. Mind boggling that Google hasn’t penalised them since years ago.

Google didn't penalize Pinterest either. In Google image search, Pinterest results are abundant but clicking on them and viewing them requires a sign-up on Pinterest.

I still remember the good old days of Quora; it was a nice era but it's gone...

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#76

Post by krono »

__ryan__ wrote: post #69
krono wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not denying that. However, unless I'd be blocking new domains on a weekly basis, I just don't think it's worth installing an additional extension for something that's so easily achieved without.

…have you used Google lately? I’m blocking junk results daily.

Been using this method to build on my blocklist for a few years, it's quite long by now ;)

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#78

Post by behnamoh »

krono wrote: post #73
behnamoh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to block/hide "People Also Search For" boxes in Google search results? It's annoying because each time you go back to search results, this little box re-aligns the whole list of results so you can't quickly click on the next search result.

This should do: google.*###search > div > div > div:has(span:has-text(/People also ask/))

This works!

Re: uBlacklist – Block specific sites from appearing in Google search results

#79

Post by MauranKilom »

heretogetout wrote: post #29
MauranKilom wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, $10 a month is pretty steep. It's great that they offer a free plan, but that comes with all the misaligned incentives again. Any reason they don't just do pay-per-use (1 cent per query)?

I don't think charging per query would work for most folks, for the same reason micropayments to bloggers or what have you won't work: it discourages use. If you know that every time you hit enter on a search query will cost you something, anything, you'll hesitate. You might choose to just use Google and use your data to pay for your search instead.

But that's kind of the point: It always costs Kagi that amount when you do a search (according to their pricing page). If the relationship between user and Kagi is not supposed to be adversarial, then indeed the "price vs value" tradeoff needs to be resolved on the user side.

At the moment, I'm either overpaying (because I perform less than $10 worth of queries per month), or the company is losing money on me. And with the existence of the free tier, the business model can only work if most paying users are effectively overcharged significantly. Right now they are operating at a loss in both tiers, if their pricing page is to be believed.

One would hope that costs amortize better with more users (e.g. scraping is pretty much fixed cost regardless of the number of users, but maybe that's already negligible) to push the price low enough for pay-per-use to not feel spendy. (When did you last think about how much one toilet flush costs you?)

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